Westchester County New York is a 10-year real life example of HUD/AFFH experimenting to see how they can take the most control away from local government. Westchester’s story demonstrates vividly, why counties should avoid taking any grant money from HUD. The damage that has been done to Westchester is sad, and frightening. We don’t want the damage to increase in our county.

We need to vote against accepting the grant money, so that we do not jeopardize the financial stability, and the neighborhood life styles of our county. HUD is going after every suburb, to equalize financial and ethnic balance (social engineering). If we do not accept grant money, we are safe.

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Spreading the Wealth – by Stanley Kurtz
Who is the driving force behind HUD?

Spreading the Wealth by Stanley Kurtz, gives a good foundation for understanding who the people and the organizations that are the driving force behind what HUD has become — and how AFFH is their tool to bring counties under HUD’s control (taking away not only planning and zoning decisions from the counties, but also a host of other local choices. They are pushing regionalism (erasing the voice of individuals living in communities).

On page 39 in the sub-chapter “Shaking up Suburbia” Stanley Kurtz lists three main components of regionalism, which aim to gradually destroy the suburbs:

“1) Redistribute suburban money to the cities (taking a disproportionate amount of suburban taxes, and giving them to the cities).
2) Force middle-class suburbanites back to the city.
3) Force the urban poor out into the suburbs.” (Importing the poor and financing them in the suburbs – this is called “economic integration” on the suburbs.[1]

WESTCHESTER COUNTY NEW YORK SUED

In 2006, the county was sued for “false claims.” They had accepted HUD grant money, but had not made a study to see if they were keeping housing opportunities away from people because of their race. They didn’t need to make the sturdy, because they weren’t excluding people because of race. Westchester was the fourth most integrated county in New York State in 2006, when a civil rights group, Anti-Discrimination Center of Metro New York (ADC), decided to sue them. [2]

Hey didn’t want to lose their federal grant money

Democrat Andrew Spano was County Executive in 2009, and decided to reach a settlement with HUD to end the lawsuit. Mr. Spano said he did this because he didn’t want the county to chance losing federal funds. [3]

“The courts decided against Westchester, ordering them to return $30 million in HUD funds and build 750 new affordable homes, in white and wealthier areas. The court further decided that, since Westchester had a very small African-American community, the county would have to market in nearby counties to import minority families.” [4]

This was the Obama administration’s forced “economic integration” and forced racial integration on the suburbs.

‘We’re clearly messaging other jurisdictions across the country that there has been a significant change in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and we’re going to ask them to pursue similar goals as well,'” [5]

Robert Astorino – new County Executive

Robert Astorino became the next County Executive. Agreements made when Spanno was County Executive, put Westchester in a position where they were forced to build much more subsidized housing, spread into white middle-class neighborhoods, and advertise for minorities to come to Westchester to live in the new housing.

The end of December 2016, Westchester completed all agreements they had made with the Federal government. It took them 10 years to build the required housing in several specified white neighborhoods. The cost to the county has been huge, and they had to give up so much of their own zoning control.

Westchester County Executive Robert Astorino – 2013

Below is a YouTube of Robert Astorino, Westchster County Executive, giving his State of the County talk in 2013 (four years ago). (12:18)

Astorino says that HUD “has the misguided notion that zoning and discrimination are the same thing. They are not. Zoning restricts what can be built — not who lives there…Zoning exists to protect quality of life for everyone.”

“In its letter of May 13th 2011, HUD insists the county must go ‘beyond the four corners’ of the settlement. In other words, they admitted that what they are demanding is not in the agreement. And their demands are outrageous.”

“HUD wants no restrictions, in any neighborhood, on height, size, acreage, density, number of bedrooms, and lack of water or sewers. In fact, in a letter of March 13th this year (2012?) HUD goes so far as to even attack single-family, quarter-acre-lots as ‘restrictive zoning practices’ — that in their view could be discriminatory.” [4:39]

“I thought working hard, paying your taxes, and one day paying off your mortgage was the American dream.” “The federal government is trying to force me, as a county executive, to sue each municipality to abolish even basic zoning protections.”

“the settlement’s requirement to build 750 units of affordable housing was just a starting point. The county’s target is really 10,768…the cost is between $850 million and $1 billion…school and local taxes would certainly increase too, along with crowded classrooms and a strain on services.”

“For HUD, zoning has become a civil rights concern.”

“Westchester is not exclusionary based on race. The major impediment is economics. People live where they choose — and where they can afford.”

“HUD has been withholding money that was promised to our local communities for the last two years — now up to $12 million.. [depriving] some of Westchester’s neediest residents for programs like Homelessness Prevention.”

“HUD thinks that Westchester is some kind of grand experiment — that it can strip away our Constitutionally protected rights, and that it can dismantle local zoning.”

“And I say nothing gives HUD the right to turn the American Dream upside down. And I will continue to stand up for Westchester, our communities, and all the people who live here.”